Under Laboratory Conditions

I’m surprised that Daniel Glaser’s Under Laboratory Conditions passed by with relatively little notice from some blogs. It was a two-part series on BBC Four. The first dealt with who scientists are. Sadly I missed that. I did catch the second and the parts I didn’t find disturbing, I found depressing, but in a good way. The second programme was about funding. It opened with the predictable finding that one of the major factors in whether or not you get funding is whether or not you’re good at applying for funding, as opposed to the quality of research. What followed was a trip through the university system in the UK for those departments who don’t get funding. One section contrasted the experiences of Aberdeen and Oxford’s chemistry departments. Aberdeen’s chemistry department has an RAE rating of 3a on a scale between 1 (worst) and 5 with varying fudge factors. That’s not a good score and it means that they receive no central funding from the Higher Education Council. I can see the argument that the pot of money is limited and you want to concentrate it at Institutions that are getting results, but this bothers me deeply. You get places like Exeter which are graded as being of national importance and, because they’re not of international importance, getting funding cut. Exeter’s Chemistry department is being shut as a consequence of this. However, I wonder what happens when another department has a bad phase. Do we eventually trim Chemistry to a manageable size, say Loxbridge and another university somewhere else in the UK for ‘diversity’?

Aberdeen’s experience is thrown into sharp relief by Oxford. Oxford have realised there isn’t enough money from government to keep them in the style they’re accustomed, and are using their prestige to attract in business. And they are very good at it. The Head of Department is a multi-millionaire from floating a business he launched on the back of his research. Part of me is cheering, because the obvious thing to ask any genius is, if you’re so clever how come you’re not rich? This dates back to the very first boffin, Thales. Yet it concerns me to think what effect the dependence on business has on research. To be fair the people at Oxford were keenly aware of this and obviously have been asking that question themselves. It also grates slightly that the proximity to London and the wealth of the colleges mean that Oxford can schmooze with multi-nationals in a way that Aberdeen can’t. But if Oxford didn’t use this resource would Aberdeen or anywhere else be better off? It might not be fair, but then that’s life.

The most affecting part of the programme was following Mike Ferguson from Dundee, who was trying to get funding for his programme to work on an illness which either was, or was like, sleeping sickness. He showed there was a real need for research. The only effective drug recently went out of production because there’s no profit in treating illnesses that only occur in sub-Saharan atmosphere. It’s not that bad because Gilette started making it after production was stopped. Apparently the same chemical is also used in some grooming product. But here was a product that was needed and no-one with an interest. Fortunately the Wellcome Trust backed it to the tune of £7m. That’s great news, but the Wellcome Trust is also a bit of a freak fund. I can’t think of another independent source with anywhere near the same resources.

It also revealed the whimsicality of funding councils. If you want to get funded then work in stem cell research. Motor Neurone disease might kill more people than Aids, but it seems it’s simply not a sexy area. If I understood the programme right, there’s been no major advances in the fight against Motor Neurone Disease for a couple of decades. Possibly this is connected to the lack of funding, but who knows? Again I can see some logic in the councils’ funding. I can see that hot areas that are attracting happening people may be worth investing more in even if the problems aren’t quite so calamitous as other areas. Yet ongiong lack of funding suggests that Motor Neurone disease is being ignored because it’s not fashionable, and that’s not defensible. I really hope that isn’t the truth.

A voice of sanity came from Rupert Sheldrake. He put forward his idea which I’ve heard before and think is wonderful. One per cent of the research budget should be allocated by the public for projects they want to see funded. I don’t know how this would work in practice, there is a fear that the people with better PR would get the funding, but the current system isn’t perfect either. I think the fraction is small enough for it not to be a serious hardship for peer-funded science and also helps show accountability for public money. Perhaps the 1% would the squandered on anti-gravity rays and training cats to play basketball, I don’t know. I doubt it, the public isn’t moronic. The choices might be eccentric, but while eccentric ideas frequently fail, the ones that don’t which can have a major impact on research. If Public Understanding of Science is a problem then doing something about it with the public might be a solution.

But is public understanding a problem?

The BBC had this news story as a trailer for the series, about mad scientists. Katie at Inkycircus has a fun rebuttal pointing out a mad scientist is not necessarily a bad scientist. Daniel Glaser also has a page on the programme. —–